


PART 4 - Moonlight Gambler

by RogersandBarnes107



Series: Bucky Barnes - Rebirth [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21900238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogersandBarnes107/pseuds/RogersandBarnes107
Series: Bucky Barnes - Rebirth [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1554157





	PART 4 - Moonlight Gambler

2023

Manhattan Beach … New York.

  


They were sitting by the window in what wasn’t exactly a diner but also not exactly a café.

The night had gotten cooler.

He zipped his hoody all the way up. Across from him she sat, pulling pins and feathers out of her hair. She kept her eyes firmly on the small table not wanting to meet his eye. With her dark hair now spiralling over her shoulders she appeared minute, as if she was drowning in the dress and coat and boots. She pulled a small ‘8’ shaped case from her left pocket, laid it sideways then poked and prodded her eyes, depositing two filmy orbs into the case. From her right pocket she produced a pair of black-framed glasses. She put them on, pushed her hair behind ears, reclined into her chair and pouted out the window like an upset child. She bit her lip, watching the traffic pass back and forth. The glamour was gone but she was no less fascinating. Her beauty was now less of a pre-Raphaelite model but that of a Van Gogh study. Bucky had no idea what was going on, he’d simply followed her to this establishment at her request.

A woman who could’ve been anyone’s grandmother, replete with apron, bed socks and slippers brought a tray over to the table. Maggie snapped back to the moment:

“Ah! Spasibo, babushka!”

The old woman cooed at her, running her hands through Maggie’s long hair.

They spoke for a time in Russian, the old woman berating Maggie for not visiting more often and saying how pretty she was, and then she turned her attention to him. She surveyed him, up and down as he perched on the old wicker chair. The Grandmother giggled and told Maggie she thought her boyfriend was too gangster for her, but was hoping he was at least ‘satisfying’. The woman who shared his name shone red and moved her glasses up off the bridge of her nose, a stray tress of hair escaping in front of her face.

“Nyet. Nyet, nyet nyet!” ( _No. No no no no_!).

“Pochemu protest?” ( _Why you protest so much, huh?_ ).

Their interaction was entertaining. This woman clearly was a matriarch. She used the rag that was tied to her apron to smack Maggie’s hands playfully in order to make her answer. Maggie laughed, making performed exclamations of pain in English ( _Ow, stop it!_ ). She managed to save her hands, putting them under the table and looked directly at him.

_What was it about her eyes?_

Maggie sighed and without taking her eyes off him she said, “On sem’ya”

( _He is family_ ).

‘Family’ – it struck a chord in him. A minor key chord – there was definite noise being made in his nervous system at the utterance. The old woman looked at him, and then Maggie and then at him and then at her again.

Maggie tentatively reached out and grabbed a full cup off the tray, bringing it up to her still painted lips as she whispered, “I on govorit po Ruski” ( _And he speaks Russian_ ).

This amused their hostess, and she took a closer look at Bucky. He smiled as sweetly as he could, “Dobrey Vecher” ( _Good evening_ ).

“Priviet” ( _Hi)_ , she replied, her scrutinized expression still lingering on her face. She looked back and Maggie and hit the rag on the table.

“Sem’ya?” ( _Family?_ )

“Da.” ( _Yes_ )

“Zhal!”( _Pity!_ ) she whacked Maggie one more time with the cloth and grinned like a hungry wolf as she strode away. Maggie sighed with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry about that – Baba Ya, she’s like my Nana.”

“I can see that.”

“I was born here. Manhattan Beach. Baba Ya used to babysit for me so… I was here a lot.”

“She taught you Russian?”

“Bits and pieces – she gave me a good head start. Reading modern history it made sense to at least have Russian and German under my belt.”

“You speak German too?”

“And French. Spanish, Romanian…and some Mandarin. I’m better with Cantonese.”

“Romanian?”

Maggie shifted uncomfortably. It reminded him of earlier his date. She took a sip out of her cup and looked back at the table.

“With sightings of the Winter Soldier, I wanted to have a full comprehension of the situation. For research purposes. Reports are rarely translated, when I find them… get them.” She drank again at reiterated, “When I get them.”

“I wasn’t the Winter Soldier in Romania.”

“Not the last time …”

_The last time? What the hell did that mean?_ Bucky’s unfortunate memories all ran into one.

“Well, as you seem to have very detailed knowledge of who I am. How about we find out who you are?”

She fidgeted; pushed up her glasses, played with the ends of her hair, picked at the hem of her jacket sleeves.

“Mr. Barnes …”

“Bucky …”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“I’ll help you out. So, you were born here, yeah? Brooklyn girl. Your name is …”

“Margaret Barnes.”

“Date of Birth?”

“June 6, 1980.”

“See. It’s not so hard. Parents?”

“Joseph Barnes, born April 11 1947. Sarah Simons, born October 31 1955”, Maggie picked up the tea, drank and surprised him when she continued, “died June 6 …1980.”

She picked at the sleeves of the coat again. Guilt burned in his gullet– he’d pushed too the hard.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok.”

It was something she still took hard. He could hear the choke in her voice as she continued. “After that though…ummm, my dad was a cop. Worked weird shifts so I was alone a lot. He had a whole stack of old Captain America comics that I used to read.”

“The ones where they made me 12?”

“Yeah –with that weird reddish hair”, they both giggled, “I am a comic book nerd. I’ve read everything, but Captain America…”, she looked out the window, lost in her own joyful world. The smile on her face, brighter than the street lamp out side, “…Steve Rogers just stuck with me.”

“Yeah. He’ll do that.”

“And I loved that I shared a name with his best friend. For a lonely kid – that really made me feel like something. Synchronicity, you know? Of all the names they could’ve chosen, they chose ‘Barnes’. Well, I nearly flipped my lid when I found out Cap was a real person. So, I searched every library for any book that had anything about Steve Rogers … and of course in finding him, I found you. And you were real. A real life Barnes – and you looked nothing the comics. You looked like …”

“…you?”

“I know. It seems crazy and of course any little kid who finds any thing in common with their heroes are gonna think they’re related but…”

A cold shiver ran through him, “Wait – you actually think we’re related?”

  


As she went silent, he turned on a knife’s edge. If this beguiling creature was family it was the first blood he’d know in 80 odd years - everything he had been hoping for. But what he felt…how she made him feel… was that what he was feeling? Was it a familial bond? It definitely felt … different. She was magnetic – it had only been a few hours and they pulled together not once but twice. He hadn’t felt so connected to someone since he met Steve all those years ago. Maggie dismissed the question by continuing to talk.

“As I got older, I got into different things. I still read the comics- never missed an issue - … do you know they turned Steve into a werewolf at one point? Crazy! …Anyway, learning about war and our military history became much more of a passion of mine. I was good at computers too. Then I got a Nintendo system when I was ten… and we had to move.”

“You had to move because you got a … whatever you said, or those two things just happened at the same time?”

She drank her tea, looked out the window.”

“Officially – I’m not supposed to talk about it. First offence of a minor, sealed record.”

“Jesus, what did you do?”

“I managed to use bits of the Nintendo and my dad’s computer … why a cop had his own personal computer in 1990, I’ll never know … anyway I may have ‘hacked’ the Bank of America.”

He could only laugh. She didn’t seem malicious. Lonely, yes, but not a master criminal. He could see she was upset by his expression. She put her tea down and lent into the table.

“I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t on purpose, I … I just like to see how things work. I liked taking things apart and– huh…maybe that explains the failed relationships…”, she stared above her for a moment. Bucky was starting to learn her tangents were an integral part of her conversations. “Anyway, I mean, what’s a ten year old kid gonna do with bank records? I just…wanted to see if I could do it.”

“You are just surprise, after surprise, aren’t you?”

“The FBI told us to move so my Dad in all his originality moved us to Manhattan Beach.”

“We’re _in_ Manhattan Beach”.

“Manhattan Beach, California”.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Bless his cotton socks. Daddy’s a man of habits.” She smiled with pure affection. ‘Daddy’ was obviously her world. He tried to steer the conversation back.

“Look, I know I said start at the beginning but are we skirting around the issue here?”

Tea again. Glasses again. Pushing hair behind ears again.

“Well, California is when I hacked into the NSA. On purpose.”

She kept her eyes on him to take in his reaction. He shifted in his seat.

“Why would you do that?”

Tea. Glasses. Hem of coat.

“To find you.”

“Me?”

“By this time, I’d kinda figured out you were the Winter Soldier. Reading from reports I’d…” she faltered. “That I’d ‘borrowed’ from let’s say, less secure agencies. I put the strands together but I just could not crack the encryptions to where you were being held. The NSA I knew would be risky and I placed my bet and lost. I was actually really impressed with their detection codes…”

“Wait! Just – hang on. I need a minute.”

She sat back, deflated. “Sorry, I get carried away.”

“No. That’s not … so you … _you_ … figured out, the ghost assassin of the 20th century was me. How?”

Her eyes brightened. Not excitement so much as fervor.

“I tracked every major conflict since 1944, grouped them geographically and then took them apart one by one: How did it start? Who or what was involved, what were the fatalities like? More importantly what did the fatalities _look_ like. Certain patterns brought me back to different assassinations. I looked at repetitions in methods of execution…”

“Wait! Stop, stop stop - how old were you?”

“12”.

“This is not what a 12 year should be doing!”

It was reprimand and she knew it. The childlike demeanor once more ascended her face and she tried to make her defense.

“Well, hacking into the NSA wasn’t _directly_ for you. I mean, it was for you - to find you but …well, it was for something else as well.”

“Did you get caught?”

“Yeah”

“How old?”

“13”

“Jesus, you’re like some … Tony Stark level genius.”

“Well, no. Tony wouldn’t have got caught. After that it all pretty much came to an end.”

“Pretty much?”

A small half smiled came up one side of her face. _Where had he seen that before?_

“Sometimes my research needs an extra … boost. But never to the level of what that was.”

“So they moved you back here again?”

“No. No, we stayed put. And it was SHIELD this time that paid us the visit. It’d been three years so I managed to use the pigtails and glasses as a shield: I swore it was an accident, I cried… My god, they hate girls crying. And they believed me. We got a case worker to check in on us and the stipulation that I had to enroll in Howard Stark High so I could be monitored.”

He bristled a little. Howard Stark – it would never leave him. Too many emotions engulfed him all at once, he started to sweat. _Get it out of your head._

“Are you ok – you look…well, not great.”

He rushed on, “What’s all this got to do with you being…me?”

“Ok, so the ‘Bucky’ comes from the huge braces I wore as a kid. The ‘Barnes’ though … so, all that backstory was so you know that, I can do things. Find things. Get to things I should not be able to get to. My whole life growing up it’s been me and my Dad. No one else. There are records. Birth certificates, drivers license, property records – but nothing physical. No trinkets, no bank accounts, no photos. My mother’s birth certificate has ‘parents unknown’. Dad said she grew up in a home. My grandparent’s names are illegible on his actual certificate and you can’t even access his birth record through agencies –I can’t find anything on them. Nothing.”

“Have you asked your father?”

“Refuses to answer. On anything. Just says, ‘the past should be left in the past’… which, can I just say, is a redundant comment to make to a historian”.

“Well, maybe…it’s just that. Maybe your mother didn’t have a family, maybe your Dad was a glitch in the system.”

“Mr. Barnes…”

“Bucky…”

Another hesitation. She recovered her tea. This was obviously a matter of some delicacy. “Let’s just say, when I was 20, I made the biggest archaeological find of the 20th Century. Yet, I can’t find physical proof that my family exists. It’s like the only thing I have as a legacy is ghosts.”

“So …”

“So, if I am truly a ‘Barnes’, which looking at you may be the case, wouldn’t it make sense if my family wasn’t just ghosts…but _the_ ghost. The one they never see coming.”

“How would that even work?”

She took a huge breath. “From what I can tell, there are two possibilities: Daddy was born in 1947, records don’t match to any immediate members of your siblings families …”

“…I thought they were all – gone?”

“They are. Your line ran out just before Berlin in 2016.”

He shivered. Lost opportunities haunted him at every turn. “Ok – so option one?”

“Option one is … my Dad could be your brother. It wasn’t uncommon for families who had lost children in the war to be part of the baby boom afterwards. Your parents were still youngish and good Irish Catholics.”

“Mother was 47. 47 isn’t what today’s 47 is.”

“No, but it’s still possible. And from my research not unheard of. A large portion of families with ‘later in life’ children, if they didn’t keep them, either relinquished the child to other family members or put them up for adoption….”

“No!” He cut her off sharply. He was starting to get angry and did not like how that felt. “She would never. We were her world. Life was sacred to her. She would never do that.”

“Perhaps it was too hard though…thinking about what she’d lost, still mourning you?”

“I am not even entertaining the notion.”

Maggie took the tea again and laughed awkwardly into the cup. “Well, hold on to your hat then because the other option is that I’m your granddaughter.”

………………………….

_What did she just say??_

“What?!”

It was only now that the thought crept into Bucky’s consciousness that the cartoonish woman opposite him might actually be mentally unhinged.

“Look at us. The hair, the eyes …”

“I agree there is a degree of similarity. And I would be lying if I didn’t think there was a familiarity about you that I find disconcerting. Yes we both have dark hair, yes we both have blue eyes but… so do millions of other people. And I was always … you know, careful. And the timing doesn’t sit right anyway. I’d left by 43. You know, I could say you look like my brother Georgie … yeah, ‘Uncle’, ‘Great Uncle’ I could buy. ‘Grandfather?’ No. Ridiculous.”

She took another breath; her eyes went back to the table, “During the war …”

“No. No way. I mean …”

“You first went out as the Winter Soldier during the division of Germany. There were reports during this time that Soviet soldiers used to…”

“…stop.”

“ and several reports about …”

“… I said stop!”

“… man with a metal arm…”

He hit the table with so much force his fist went straight through it, expelling the tray of tea off the edge of the table. There were no other customers around, just Baba Ya and a man he assumed was her son. Maggie jumped up and immediately started to clean the mess. She picked up the tray, putting the ceramic remnants on it – burning herself in the hot liquid pool in the process. Guilt resurfaced. He wanted to help but was frozen. What she had said chilled his blood. Baba Ya and son, came out of their shock and started towards her.

“Mitya, nyet! Nyet ….”, and she continued to insist she was ok and had it under control. Both proprietors took her word. It was obvious he didn’t want to come anywhere near them. As they backed off, Maggie finished clearing up as best she could. She sat back down in her window seat and looked down at the table.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry … I forget sometimes that there are other people on the ends of my conversations.”

Bucky was looking out the window, red eyed and utterly perturbed.

“I don’t do that, Miss Barnes. I would never do that …”, he clenched his fists holding it in.

Maggie looked up at him, so disappointed in herself for hurting him – but she had testimony, witness accounts, records. She couldn’t unread what she’d read. He looked at her and seemed to read the conflict she had in wanting the truth and wanting to comfort him.

“You think I did? You – who knows ALL about me…”

“I think … when you first went out, you weren’t ready. I think they rushed you. You weren’t rewired properly.”

His breathing changed.

“I know it’s hard to hear and… my god, I’m so sorry but try and think of it like a possession. It’s your body, but it’s not you. You’re in there, you’re definitely in there but you weren’t in control of anything.”

“Are you comparing to Banner?”

“No … but that’s a good comparison actually. If it helps you reconcile...”

“I would never knowingly do that – and of all the things I can remember, I do NOT remember any of that.”

“Do you remember anything from 1946?”

Silence.

She continued, “There is reason to think after this, they spent more time on you. Chose the right moment to let you back out.”

“You’ve read about this?”

More silence.

He continued. “Miss Barnes, I will say it one last time – I don’t do that”.

“No. You don’t. These are the only reports of that nature that exist. When you do kill women…did kill women. It was intimate, up close, personal. Usually asphyxiation, never ultra violence.”

“Please … Stop!”

“I’m just trying to say that – I think that they screwed your brain up so hard, but you were ultimately still in there and you did your missions on your terms. That first time though… that was an unbridled savage machine.”

He took it in, felt sick to his stomach but knowing the sadistic assholes that held him in captivity all those years; he couldn’t say it was impossibility. “And if they are true – you think that - you’re Dad could be…”

“It would explain the lost history, the lost time. But I fail to see why they wouldn’t have sterilized you before… ”

With every new word that erupted from her mouth, it was as if it burnt another layer of his sanity away.

“What the …?”

“It was standard Soviet practice. Natasha Romanoff spoke of her Red Room training, she specifically stated that they were sterilized so that there weren’t any ‘surprises’ after missions.”

“I wasn’t used like that…”

“No, but … in any case, it was procedure. Men and women”.

“Are you saying, I can’t have kids?”

“I’m a PhD, not an MD. I can’t answer that but my guess is ‘no’. If I’m not who I think I am…the line stops with you”.

He took a huge breath in, nausea burning, trying to stave off all instinct to punch the table again. “You know, when I first saw you this evening it was like … a breath of fresh air. Something new …yet familiar – nothing like what these new girls are… and now….”

“…And now?”

“I wish I’d never met you.”

_Brutal._ And even with that king hit he just delivered, she smiled, that sad smile from the restaurant.

“That’s every relationship I’ve had summarizing me in one sentence. And it only took you a couple of hours. Congratulations.”

“Did you plan this? Did you hack Sam and know where I would be…”

“Sam…? Wilson? No! Oh my god, no! It … it honestly just happened. I was looking for Greg.”

“So, now you’ve ruined Greg’s night and mine, let’s get down to why we are really here. What’s the favour you made me agree to?”

“Please…”

“No matter what you read about me, no matter what delusional situations you’ve dreamt up from reports or your own imagination, I believe I am a man of honour. A man of my word. So what’s the favour?”

She was hurt. He didn’t really care except there was a part of him that panged. It was like he could feel everything she felt. She was looking at the table again, and took her time before eventually revealing, “I would like for you … and me… to get a DNA test. To know for sure.”

She seemed sincere when she said meeting him had been a coincidence. But a DNA test? That takes some planning and calculation.

“Let me get this straight – in light of what you just told me, knowing that I may have committed the worst of war atrocities, you sent me home with a woman tonight so that you could ask for a DNA test?”

“The reports aren’t substantiated. We don’t know for sure …”

“It’s a yes or no answer.”

“Yes.”

He got up from the table, opened his wallet, grabbed four hundred dollar bills and presented them to Mitya.“Za ushcherb” ( _for the damage_ ), and laid them on the table. He took one more look at her and walked out the door.

…………………………..

  


He didn’t go far.

He just needed air.

At almost 2am in the morning, the last thing he was going to do was let her travel home on her own. He assured himself again, he wasn’t like that. That wasn’t him. But he sure did need some space. He moved across to the beachfront letting the crashing waves thunder through his head, quieting the storm that was already going on in there. He made sure he could still see in the windows of the restaurant. She sat in her seat, not moving, for what seemed like forever and then she was up – moving from window to window. He saw her hand Mitya the money. Baba Ya simultaneously hugged and smacked her with the towel and then gave Maggie a mop and she cleaned up under the floor of the broken table. As someone who had been routinely brainwashed and tortured, he lived his new life with his defenses up. That’s why he couldn’t believe the speed of how she had got into his head; how he had gravitated to her. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps she was family. It made sense but it didn’t sit right –he was still a man. He still understood feelings of attraction. _Is it attraction though_? A sickening guilt sprung forth as he remembered thinking of her while being with Jenna. Logic – or how his broken brain processed logic interfered with everything his body was physically experiencing. Tonight, he’d had sex for the first time in over half a century and he’d already dismissed it, due to the Chaplin-esque tramp mopping the floor.

  


He saw the lights go off and the door open.

Maggie walked out, hugged Baba Ya and then watched as they closed the door. She slumped against the wall of the building, looking at her phone. He made his way back to the sidewalk. She looked up and saw him, her shoulders falling a little more.

“Hey”, he called to her.

“Hey”, she echoed. Deflated.

“So, I guess that Baba Ya isn’t that impressed anymore with your choice of date?”

“She definitely knows people. I said it wouldn’t be productive sending anyone after you.” As she played with her phone, he saw part of a rag, tied around her hand.

“What happened to your hand?”

“I burnt it when you broke the table …what are you still doing here, Sergeant Barnes?”

_Sergeant_. The delivery was cold.

“I am here to accompany you home.”

“You just stormed out…”

“I needed to breathe. Things you say – well, they’re a lot to take, Doctor Barnes…” She lowered her head in shame. He had meant to serve her distanced nomenclature back at her as a retort but he felt bad the sadness it had caused. He decided to be the gentleman he knew he was, “I am sorry if I frightened you at any point this evening. It was not at all my intention.”

“It’s my fault. I could’ve been more delicate – I’m sorry too.”

“So, where do you live?”

“Prospect Heights.”

“We’re practically neighbours”.

“Look, Sergeant Barnes …”

“Bucky…”

“I can’t call you, Bucky. It’s what everyone calls me...just…you don’t have to be here. You can go home. What’s that thing they say – ‘never meet your heroes’?

Bucky’s chest cramped, “I disappointed you.”

“No, Sergeant – I disappointed you. I always manage to screw things up. Push people too far.”

“Come on, let me take you home. We can talk on the way.”

He made the grand gesture of presenting his arm to her – right, of course – to lighten the mood. There was hesitation in eyes. He felt it too. This offer had more weight to it that either of them could comprehend. Would she hit or hold her cards? She walked forward and took a his arm. For all the things he wanted to ask her, say to her, find out from her they both remained silent all the way to Prospect Heights.

  


……………..

  


They walked and took the subway.

Whenever there was an occasion to be just the two of them side by side, she took his arm. It felt so natural to Bucky to have her there; he started to wonder if this could be his second chance at family. Maybe she was exactly what she said: A niece unknown. To think that this could be his granddaughter though – that was too much on too many levels to comprehend. But was he really in a position to close the door on an opportunity that could give him back a life? Steve had jumped at the chance to take his. When was it going to be his time? Was it now? The implication though of how she –or more so her father – came into the world filled him with rage and fear. Maggie directed him down Vanderbilt, a long stretch of modern bars, restaurants and shops. She stopped about a quarter of the way down the street.

“This is me.”

Bucky looked at the storefront. They were standing in front of small secondhand bookstore. “Of course you live in a book store. It makes complete sense.”

She giggled. “No, this is all Mr. Wasserman’s. I live above. I work there too sometimes.”

Lifting his line of sight, her could see a long white sign in red script above the neon ‘Books’ light. It read _R n B Ballroom Dance_. “You live in a dance studio”.

“Our apartment is the floor above. Greg and I got the place years ago. He mainly runs it. I do some evening classes.”

“So, you’re telling me. You’re a history reading, ballroom dance studio owning, computer genius?”

She considered the title, scrunching her face a little at its components. “Hmmm, more like ‘Ballroom dancing, historical strategist, comic book reading, computer genius’.

They both laughed at the truth were there. This girl was like 10,000 women in one. She was unlike anyone he’d ever met. There was a slight awkwardness as they both pondered their next move. Bucky broke first, as she was fishing the keys out of her seemingly bottomless pockets.

“I said we’d talk…and we didn’t. But I have been thinking”. He let his eyes take her in one more time. He decided to roll the dice, “If I do this DNA test – it has to be on my terms. There are things in me that if they wind up in the wrong hands…”

“I get it. Your altered genetic code is invaluable.”

“If I agree … and I am not saying, I am…but if I do…”

“You can control everything: who we see, where we go, how we do it. I mean I don’t even need to be there…I can just send in a swab.”

“No. No, you need to be there. If you are who you think you are, there might be something they could unlock from you so we need to be secure when we do this - _if_ we do this”.

“Right – of course.”

“I just need some time …”

“Of course. Yes. I completely understand”. Maggie was attempting to be all business but couldn’t help but radiate. Her smile was determined to be a fixture on her elated face.

He started to back off, to make his departure when she exclaimed, “Wait! Do you need my phone number? To contact me?”

He looked back up at the sign. The 555 number was in bold font under the sweeping silhouette of two waltzing figures. She was standing at the glass door just to the side of the bookstore display window. He grinned as he moved off.

“I’ll find you. Trust me.”

She beamed, “Goodnight, Mr. Barnes”.

“Goodnight, Miss Barnes.

…………………………………………….

  


Maggie made he way slowly upstairs. She could’ve taken the elevator but she was in no rush, she was trying to process what indeed had gone on. Two flights and she came to the door of the studio. She let herself in, giving herself a minute to enjoy the safety of being home, admiring the beauty of the space as the moonlight spilled through big factory windows. An orange glow briefly lit up the sprung wooden floor, and a smile crept over her face. In an instant she used the interior stairs to make her way up to the roof. It had a great view, looking out over the city. It was eerily quiet. Mr. Wasserman’s pigeons didn’t even wake up from their huddled sleep. Maggie made her way from the fire door to the far side of the pigeon coup. A figure loomed in the darkness, waiting for her.

“It never rains but it pours…how you doin’, Cap?”

Emerging from the shadow, the tall blonde smiled and pulled Maggie into a warm embrace.


End file.
